AI promised us rocket fuel and handed us… work slop.

In this episode of Radar – by nexxworks, Steven Van Belleghem, Peter Hinssen and Pascal Coppens dissect a wild year in AI and look ahead at what’s coming next for innovation, marketing and customer loyalty.

The trio starts with DeepSeek and what its sudden rise says about the next wave of AI capabilities. They unpack the phenomenon of work slop – endless AI-generated garbage clogging our feeds and inboxes – and explore why Klarna’s AI journey proves that human oversight is still non-negotiable. From there, they move into Hollywood and beyond: AI-generated actors, synthetic influencers and the coming clash between creativity, ethics and efficiency.

Things get even more sci-fi when humanoid robots enter the chat. Pascal zooms in on how China is racing ahead in robotics, AI integration and its next five-year plan focused on productivity and innovation. Meanwhile, Apple is struggling to find its AI groove, raising sharp questions about its future as the world’s favourite innovation icon.

Underneath all of this runs a bigger story:

What happens to customer loyalty when algorithms do the choosing? How much marketing intuition can we afford to lose in a world obsessed with data? And which jobs and entry-level roles get eaten first as AI creeps deeper into the workflow?

Suppose you’re trying to make sense of AI, DeepSeek, Klarna, work slop, customer loyalty, humanoid robots, Apple, marketing, predictions and innovation. In that case, this episode is your slightly sarcastic, fully human guide through the chaos of what’s next.

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